Schulman, Bruce J. The Seventies: The Great Shift in American Culture, Society, and Politics. New York: Free Press, 2001.
Argument
The Seventies shouldn't be remembered for its pop culture and as an otherwise lost decade. It should be remembered for:
-The rising again of the South. Political power gained in the Sunbelt. "the South's historic policy prescriptions-low taxes and scant public services, military preparedness and a preference for state and local government over federal supremacy-came to define the national agenda"
-An explosion of public spirituality accompanied this political and ideological shift, especially as conservative Christians emerged as an effective influence outside time-honored denominational spheres.
-the triumph of the market as "the favored means for personal liberation and cultural revolution." The 1970s saw a marked decline in trust in the federal government, as many Americans turned instead to the private sphere and what Schulman calls "an unusual faith in the market." Easy credit led Americans to invest in the market, putting their faith in the market to sustain them in the long run where the government seemed to be failing.
-Other important developments: the rise of feminism, the development of new voices in music and film, the growth of identity movements around ethnicity, sexuality, race, and age, and the rise of New Age religious ideas and personal growth.
Other interesting bits
Schulman tries to synthesize political developments using culture. Disco was the last great expression of integration in the decade, and the anti-Disco movement was a reflection of the shifting to a conservative consensus.
The identity movements reflected the morphing of 60s activism into more individualistic venues.
Review
Katherine Jay - Reviews in American history
"The concept that southern attitudes came to dominate national policy debates is not new, but Schulman explores the concept of "southernization" beyond its political impact, looking at emerging cultural and social manifesta- tions, particularly in a chapter on the "reddening" of America. Here, he offers a fascinating read on the rise of the Sunbelt by examining the widespread popularity of motorcyclist Evel Knievel, country music, and football, includ- ing the promotion of the Dallas Cowboys as "America's team." He convinc- ingly argues that "a new, defiant, resurgent South found its way into country music," whether through Loretta Lynn's pride in being a "Coal Miner's Daughter" in 1970 or the more militant anthems of Hank Williams, Jr. and the group Alabama in the late 1970s (p. 115). These developments made many in the national press uncomfortable, perhaps because they also reflected a larger shift toward conservative southern values. As more Americans began to listen to the twangy sounds of country music, the South itself became a vital center of jobs and production, luring businesses and factories with its nonunion policies and aggressive promotions. This economic growth, along with favorable federal largesse and a rapidly growing population, made southern politicians major players in Washington D.C., while southern cultural norms lost their hillbilly edge and moved definitively into the mainstream."
Connection
While Lassiter (in his deeper Silent Majority) argues the south came to look more like the rest of the suburbanizing nation, Schulman argues the nation was "southernized"/"reddened" in that southern culture found broad appeal throughout the nation.
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Friday, April 29, 2011
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
Larson - Summer for the Gods
Larson, Edward J. Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America's Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion. New York: BasicBooks, 1997.
Argument
Split into 3 parts, Larson surveys the before, during, and after of the Scopes Trial, rightly marking it as a pivotal and representative moment in the clash between traditional, literal theology and science and modernity. Larson uses his knowledge of law and history to trace the legal arguments of the two sides in the test case brought through the efforts of the resurgent ACLU. "While the prosecution wished to defend the right of legislatures to control the schools and their curriculum and to discredit the theory of evolution, defense attorneys sought to defend individual freedom and scientific authority and to discount biblical literalism." (JAH review)
Larson raises other conflicts revealed by the case. North-South, rural economies-New South urban, changes in evangelicalism, Progressive era transformation.
Larson traces the resonance of the case through history, through literature and the play "Inherit the Wind." Cases finally reached the Supreme Court in the 1960s where Justice Fortas, who grew up in Tenn in the 1920s, fought for the overturn of the laws. Evangelicals retreated from the debate until the 1980s.
Argument
Split into 3 parts, Larson surveys the before, during, and after of the Scopes Trial, rightly marking it as a pivotal and representative moment in the clash between traditional, literal theology and science and modernity. Larson uses his knowledge of law and history to trace the legal arguments of the two sides in the test case brought through the efforts of the resurgent ACLU. "While the prosecution wished to defend the right of legislatures to control the schools and their curriculum and to discredit the theory of evolution, defense attorneys sought to defend individual freedom and scientific authority and to discount biblical literalism." (JAH review)
Larson raises other conflicts revealed by the case. North-South, rural economies-New South urban, changes in evangelicalism, Progressive era transformation.
Larson traces the resonance of the case through history, through literature and the play "Inherit the Wind." Cases finally reached the Supreme Court in the 1960s where Justice Fortas, who grew up in Tenn in the 1920s, fought for the overturn of the laws. Evangelicals retreated from the debate until the 1980s.
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Williams - Ideas of Nature
Williams, Raymond. "Ideas of Nature." From Culture and Materialism: Selected Essays. London: Verso, 2005.
Williams explores how humans have perceived of nature throughout history. Medieval westerners perceived Nature as the minister of God. Nature was made singular and abstract, and personified as a force and principle.
More recently, humans have begun to perceive of nature as something separate from themselves. This coincides with the rise of science and theories of evolution. Initially, they conceived of themselves as part of nature, even if they saw themselves at the top of the natural hierarchy, or perhaps just below God. Now nature is seen as something that men can improve, or can go to apart from their own creation. The idea that men might talk about intervening in nature suggests to Williams the erroneous conception that they could choose NOT to interfere with nature. Inherent in this fallacy is an abstraction of man himself, something apart from the natural world he inhabits.
Key Quote
"If we alienate the living processes of which we are a part, we end, though unequally, by alienating ourselves." (84)
Williams explores how humans have perceived of nature throughout history. Medieval westerners perceived Nature as the minister of God. Nature was made singular and abstract, and personified as a force and principle.
More recently, humans have begun to perceive of nature as something separate from themselves. This coincides with the rise of science and theories of evolution. Initially, they conceived of themselves as part of nature, even if they saw themselves at the top of the natural hierarchy, or perhaps just below God. Now nature is seen as something that men can improve, or can go to apart from their own creation. The idea that men might talk about intervening in nature suggests to Williams the erroneous conception that they could choose NOT to interfere with nature. Inherent in this fallacy is an abstraction of man himself, something apart from the natural world he inhabits.
Key Quote
"If we alienate the living processes of which we are a part, we end, though unequally, by alienating ourselves." (84)
Bellah - "Civil Religion in America"
Bellah, Robert. "Civil Religion in America." From Alexander, Jeffrey C., and Steven Seidman. Culture and Society: Contemporary Debates. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Originally published 1970
Examples from the Kennedy inaugural, to the Declaration of Independence, to Lincoln's 2nd inaugural and Gettysberg Address, back to LBJ demonstrate the continuing place of God (though never, explicitly, Jesus) in America's self-perception.
"...the separation of church and state has not denied the political realm a religious dimension." Bellah distinguishes between personal belief, worship, and ritual which are seen as private affairs and the more common elements of religious ideas that spread throughout the fabric of American life. The inauguration affirms the religious legitimation of the President. (263)
America has long conceived of itself as an extension of and a modern version of Israel, and a nation created by believers to be a light to the world. It remains so as Bellah writes in 1970 (earlier? during LBJ?), in the midst of the Cold War.
Until the Civil War, the Civil Religion focused on the Revolution as the ultimate act of "Exodus" for the U.S. But the Civil War inevitably undermined this vision. Lincoln's use of "birth" and related words throughout the Gettysburg address, as well as the myth of Lincoln himself, reveals the death-sacrifice-rebirth meaning the Civil religion took from the Civil War.
The Civil religion remains alive, for better or, as Bellah concludes, for worse: though he certainly buys in to the conception of the Cold War as a good-vs-evil endeavor, LBJ avoided using the Civil religion to claim God's favor in Vietnam but others haven't been so hesitant.
Could we have an agnostic President? Bellah is skeptical.
Key quote
"If the whole God symbolism requires reformulation, there will be obvious consequences for the civil religion, consequences perhaps of liberal alienation and of fundamentalist ossification that have not so far been prominent in this realm." (272) He thus anticipates the divide between liberals and fundamentalists that has shaped politics in the last 30 years.
Connection
Bellah assumes an continuing difference between Civic Religion and personal, private beliefs. However, I think this divergence, while perhaps not beginning in the 20th century, has certainly been exacerbated by the cultural revolution sparked by Freud, described by Rieff, and increasingly lamented by Bell, Lasch, etc. etc.
Originally published 1970
Examples from the Kennedy inaugural, to the Declaration of Independence, to Lincoln's 2nd inaugural and Gettysberg Address, back to LBJ demonstrate the continuing place of God (though never, explicitly, Jesus) in America's self-perception.
"...the separation of church and state has not denied the political realm a religious dimension." Bellah distinguishes between personal belief, worship, and ritual which are seen as private affairs and the more common elements of religious ideas that spread throughout the fabric of American life. The inauguration affirms the religious legitimation of the President. (263)
America has long conceived of itself as an extension of and a modern version of Israel, and a nation created by believers to be a light to the world. It remains so as Bellah writes in 1970 (earlier? during LBJ?), in the midst of the Cold War.
Until the Civil War, the Civil Religion focused on the Revolution as the ultimate act of "Exodus" for the U.S. But the Civil War inevitably undermined this vision. Lincoln's use of "birth" and related words throughout the Gettysburg address, as well as the myth of Lincoln himself, reveals the death-sacrifice-rebirth meaning the Civil religion took from the Civil War.
The Civil religion remains alive, for better or, as Bellah concludes, for worse: though he certainly buys in to the conception of the Cold War as a good-vs-evil endeavor, LBJ avoided using the Civil religion to claim God's favor in Vietnam but others haven't been so hesitant.
Could we have an agnostic President? Bellah is skeptical.
Key quote
"If the whole God symbolism requires reformulation, there will be obvious consequences for the civil religion, consequences perhaps of liberal alienation and of fundamentalist ossification that have not so far been prominent in this realm." (272) He thus anticipates the divide between liberals and fundamentalists that has shaped politics in the last 30 years.
Connection
Bellah assumes an continuing difference between Civic Religion and personal, private beliefs. However, I think this divergence, while perhaps not beginning in the 20th century, has certainly been exacerbated by the cultural revolution sparked by Freud, described by Rieff, and increasingly lamented by Bell, Lasch, etc. etc.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Smith-Rosenberg - Sex as Symbol in Victorian Purity
Smith-Rosenberg, Carol. "Sex as symbol in Victorian Purity." From Alexander, Jeffrey C., and Steven Seidman. Culture and Society: Contemporary Debates. Cambridge [England]: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Originally published 1978
Smith-Rosenberg discusses Victorian reformers' critique of sex in writings during and after the age of Jackson. Set against the backdrop of the social changes of early industrialization (young men and women moving from agriculture to urban work), moral reformers argued pre-marital sex, promiscuity, and masturbation would cause an unhealthy release of energy. This damaged the individual and correspondingly threatened the society. Sexual behavior was seen as polluting the individual and the society. Reformers disliked young women and men going to boarding schools, which were thought to facilitate immoral behavior.
"On one level [the symbols of male moral reformers] expressed timeless fears of the power and uncontrollability of orgasms, of Oedipal conflict, of male fears and fascination with woman's sexuality and her reproductive powers. On the other hand, they provided an ideal sexual regimen for a newly urbanized middle class that had suddenly to revers the procreational practices of the past two centuries..."
Further, Smith-Rosenberg sets these fears within the cosmic system they were formulated, which perceived the threat of pollution being particularly dangerous during adolescence.
Originally published 1978
Smith-Rosenberg discusses Victorian reformers' critique of sex in writings during and after the age of Jackson. Set against the backdrop of the social changes of early industrialization (young men and women moving from agriculture to urban work), moral reformers argued pre-marital sex, promiscuity, and masturbation would cause an unhealthy release of energy. This damaged the individual and correspondingly threatened the society. Sexual behavior was seen as polluting the individual and the society. Reformers disliked young women and men going to boarding schools, which were thought to facilitate immoral behavior.
"On one level [the symbols of male moral reformers] expressed timeless fears of the power and uncontrollability of orgasms, of Oedipal conflict, of male fears and fascination with woman's sexuality and her reproductive powers. On the other hand, they provided an ideal sexual regimen for a newly urbanized middle class that had suddenly to revers the procreational practices of the past two centuries..."
Further, Smith-Rosenberg sets these fears within the cosmic system they were formulated, which perceived the threat of pollution being particularly dangerous during adolescence.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
McCarraher - Christian Critics
McCarraher, Eugene. Christian Critics: Religion and the Impasse in Modern American Social Thought. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2000.
Argument
Compared to the ultimately satisfying slog that was Phillip Rieff and even the similarly-conceived Luker, this was disappointing. It is essentially a historiographic synthesis of what various Christian social critics were writing and saying throughout the 20th century. Luker does the same, however Luker is much easier to pin down a central argument.
Still, Christian Critics fits usefully in my reading list. It picks up the strain of "social gospel" religious thought discussed by Luker (while Luker focuses on the failure of the social gospel to pursue racial change, McCarraher returns to a broader discussion of social gospel) and continues it up to the 1970s. McCarraher reveals how Christian intellectuals of the left gradually had their religious theology eroded as they struggled to adjust their ideas to the political developments of the century as well as the deeper cultural revolution epitomized by Freud in the early century, discussed by Rieff in the 50s and 60s, and reflected on by Lasch and Bell in the 70s.
Chapters
The chronological organization helpfully roots developments in Christian Criticism within political developments.
Chapter 1 - Liberal Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, and the Social Gospel of the Professional-Managerial Class, 1900-1919 - Along with secular Progressives, liberal Protestant social gospelers looked to the professional middle class as the vanguard of social progress. Meanwhile, American Roman Catholics pursued "modern medievalism" that sought to assimilate Catholics into the corporate order, which would hopefully become decentralized.
Chapter 2 - After Such Knowledge: The Modern Temper and he Social Gospel, 1919-1932 - In the wake of WWI Social Gospelers preserved the pre-war ideals more faithfully than secular bretheren.
Chapter 3 - The Permanent Revolution: Christianity, Moral Economy, and Revolutionary Symbolism, 1932-1941 - Perception of Christianity as a permanent revolution designed to build the Kingdom of God. This led many Christian Critics to embrace Christian communism as an ideology...of course, this came to an abrupt end after WWII.
Chapter 4 - Rendering Unto Casar: The American Century, the Covenant of Containment, and the Gospel of Personalism, 1941-1962 - Led by Reinhold Niebuhr, religious intellectuals lined up behind the Cold War state against the atheism of the Soviet Union.
Chapter 5 - The Gospel of Eros: Paul Tillich, the Consuming Vision, and the Therapeutic Ethos - Tillich represents a contradictory figure of an intellectual who encouraged a therapeutic use of Religion while at the same time pursuing a rather hedonistic life.
Chapter 6 - The Twilight of the Gods: The Rise and Fall of the Secular City, 1962-1975 - Just as Isserman notes the Old Left was both hopeful of the potential of the New Left but disappointed that they weren't a larger part of it, so too did Christian Critics feel mixed about a movement that echoed much of their thought while at the same time being explicitly anti-religious.
Review
Robert Booth Fowler - JAH - http://www.jstor.org/stable/2675224
"...Reinhold Niebuhr, whom McCarraher attacks for offering no religious alternatives to the United States and in the end surrendering to the "professional and managerial culture" as his "realistic ideal"..."
"Christian Critics is also an argument grounded in left politics but hardly that of the conventional American Left. For McCarraher, the needed critique of American capitalism and its political and cultural expressions should take a distinctly religious (Christian in this instance) form and must be reconnected with the American people. For him, the Left of today is something of an embarassment. So much of what it has to say is really "moral libertarianism," and it adopts a market model for morality that hardly facilitates a serious critique of capitalism. The Left, moreover, whether secular or religious, suffers from "the lack of popular American roots." The answer, for McCarraher, is a transformative religious left connected with real people and actual institutions."
Argument
Compared to the ultimately satisfying slog that was Phillip Rieff and even the similarly-conceived Luker, this was disappointing. It is essentially a historiographic synthesis of what various Christian social critics were writing and saying throughout the 20th century. Luker does the same, however Luker is much easier to pin down a central argument.
Still, Christian Critics fits usefully in my reading list. It picks up the strain of "social gospel" religious thought discussed by Luker (while Luker focuses on the failure of the social gospel to pursue racial change, McCarraher returns to a broader discussion of social gospel) and continues it up to the 1970s. McCarraher reveals how Christian intellectuals of the left gradually had their religious theology eroded as they struggled to adjust their ideas to the political developments of the century as well as the deeper cultural revolution epitomized by Freud in the early century, discussed by Rieff in the 50s and 60s, and reflected on by Lasch and Bell in the 70s.
Chapters
The chronological organization helpfully roots developments in Christian Criticism within political developments.
Chapter 1 - Liberal Protestantism, Roman Catholicism, and the Social Gospel of the Professional-Managerial Class, 1900-1919 - Along with secular Progressives, liberal Protestant social gospelers looked to the professional middle class as the vanguard of social progress. Meanwhile, American Roman Catholics pursued "modern medievalism" that sought to assimilate Catholics into the corporate order, which would hopefully become decentralized.
Chapter 2 - After Such Knowledge: The Modern Temper and he Social Gospel, 1919-1932 - In the wake of WWI Social Gospelers preserved the pre-war ideals more faithfully than secular bretheren.
Chapter 3 - The Permanent Revolution: Christianity, Moral Economy, and Revolutionary Symbolism, 1932-1941 - Perception of Christianity as a permanent revolution designed to build the Kingdom of God. This led many Christian Critics to embrace Christian communism as an ideology...of course, this came to an abrupt end after WWII.
Chapter 4 - Rendering Unto Casar: The American Century, the Covenant of Containment, and the Gospel of Personalism, 1941-1962 - Led by Reinhold Niebuhr, religious intellectuals lined up behind the Cold War state against the atheism of the Soviet Union.
Chapter 5 - The Gospel of Eros: Paul Tillich, the Consuming Vision, and the Therapeutic Ethos - Tillich represents a contradictory figure of an intellectual who encouraged a therapeutic use of Religion while at the same time pursuing a rather hedonistic life.
Chapter 6 - The Twilight of the Gods: The Rise and Fall of the Secular City, 1962-1975 - Just as Isserman notes the Old Left was both hopeful of the potential of the New Left but disappointed that they weren't a larger part of it, so too did Christian Critics feel mixed about a movement that echoed much of their thought while at the same time being explicitly anti-religious.
Review
Robert Booth Fowler - JAH - http://www.jstor.org/stable/2675224
"...Reinhold Niebuhr, whom McCarraher attacks for offering no religious alternatives to the United States and in the end surrendering to the "professional and managerial culture" as his "realistic ideal"..."
"Christian Critics is also an argument grounded in left politics but hardly that of the conventional American Left. For McCarraher, the needed critique of American capitalism and its political and cultural expressions should take a distinctly religious (Christian in this instance) form and must be reconnected with the American people. For him, the Left of today is something of an embarassment. So much of what it has to say is really "moral libertarianism," and it adopts a market model for morality that hardly facilitates a serious critique of capitalism. The Left, moreover, whether secular or religious, suffers from "the lack of popular American roots." The answer, for McCarraher, is a transformative religious left connected with real people and actual institutions."
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Bennett - Party of Fear
Bennett, David Harry. The Party of Fear: From Nativist Movements to the New Right in American History. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988.
Argument
Bennett periodizes extremist Right movements in American history. He argues nativism was the unifying trait until the 1921 immigration quotas closed the door to the flood of immigrants. In the 1930s, inverted nativism attacking elites began to appear, culminating after World War II with McCarthyism. Throughout the Cold War, communist conspiracy theories most prominently the John Birch Society abounded on the extreme right, though never taking up the nativist strains that they had in 1919. Bennett charts the rise of the New Right, particularly the Religious Right of Buchanon, Falwell, et al - their brief decline and the end of the Moral Majority in 1990, and their reemergence as the Christian Coalition during the Clinton Presidency. The religious right warned that the govt was being steered in an amoral and evil direction away from tradition family values. More anti-govt were contempoary the militia movements. The book ends on the verge of the 1996 election.
Thus, we see a broad period of Nativism (Know-Nothings to first Red Scare to 20s KKK), followed by inverted Nativism (Father Coughlin, Gerald LK Smith) stretching into the Cold War (McCarthyism). Cold War conspiracy theories morphed into anti-govt conspiracy theories (John Birch Society), blending with the rise of the religious right lead to movements ranging from the mass movements of the televangelists to neo-Nazis to Militias to the tiny movements of Christian Identity (Jesus was not a Jew, Americans are God's true chosen people).
Argument
Bennett periodizes extremist Right movements in American history. He argues nativism was the unifying trait until the 1921 immigration quotas closed the door to the flood of immigrants. In the 1930s, inverted nativism attacking elites began to appear, culminating after World War II with McCarthyism. Throughout the Cold War, communist conspiracy theories most prominently the John Birch Society abounded on the extreme right, though never taking up the nativist strains that they had in 1919. Bennett charts the rise of the New Right, particularly the Religious Right of Buchanon, Falwell, et al - their brief decline and the end of the Moral Majority in 1990, and their reemergence as the Christian Coalition during the Clinton Presidency. The religious right warned that the govt was being steered in an amoral and evil direction away from tradition family values. More anti-govt were contempoary the militia movements. The book ends on the verge of the 1996 election.
Thus, we see a broad period of Nativism (Know-Nothings to first Red Scare to 20s KKK), followed by inverted Nativism (Father Coughlin, Gerald LK Smith) stretching into the Cold War (McCarthyism). Cold War conspiracy theories morphed into anti-govt conspiracy theories (John Birch Society), blending with the rise of the religious right lead to movements ranging from the mass movements of the televangelists to neo-Nazis to Militias to the tiny movements of Christian Identity (Jesus was not a Jew, Americans are God's true chosen people).
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Rieff - The Triumph of the Therapeutic
Rieff, Philip. The Triumph of the Therapeutic; Uses of Faith After Freud. New York: Harper & Row, 1966.
Argument
"The religious psychologies of release (Jung, Reich, Lawrence) and the social technologies of affluence do not go beyond release and affluence to a fresh imposition of restrictive demands." (254)
"...a sense of well-being has become the end, rather than a by-product of striving after some superior communal end..." (261 [last sentence of book])
Rieff argues Freud's theories triggered the most consequential cultural revolution since Christianity subsumed the Roman Empire. (Note: Rieff is speaking of an apparently global revolution, but speaks mainly of Western culture. The East to Rieff in 1966 is the Soviet Union, which he argues is merely a more conservative attempt at a society designed for maximum improvement of individuals.) Freud replaced Christianity (and the religious impulse in general) with psychological analysis designed to release the individual from his psychological problems.
Rieff dedicates a chapter each to three of Freud's predecessors, Jung, Reich, and D.H. Lawrence, each of whom attempted to re-institute an element of faith into Freud's purely scientific system.
Jung - Unable to set his protestant faith aside as Freud had done with his Judaism, Jung imagined the "subterranean God" - the inner impulses Freud identified at work within man - as a replacement for the Heavenly Father.
Wilhelm Reich - Reich called himself a Freudo-Marxist. Reich, who admitted in his late-life memoirs that he thought himself a sort of prophet, imagined "Orgone," a universal energy (sexual...a replacement for Freud's libido...love is the supreme form of energy) which, if unleashed and embraced by individuals, would help bring about a moral and social revolution.
D.H. Lawrence - Lawrence idealized the innocent child, accepting Freud's theories about the sexuality of the child, and arguing the child is the perfect state of humans, one to be striven for.
A Definition of Culture
"To speak of a moral culture would be redundant. Every culture has two main functions: (1) to organize the moral demands men make upon themselves into asystem of symbols that make men intelligible and trustworthy to each other, thus rendering also the world intelligible and trustworthy; (2) to organize the expressive remissions by which men release themselves, in some degree, from the strain of conforming to the controlling symbolic, internalized variant readings of culture that constitute individual character." (232-3)
How this Fits
Freud is the revolutionary intellectual elite. Rieff is identifying his effect on culture, particularly, as he states over and over, his effect on American culture where he was most strongly embraced. As Freud's followers demonstrate, Freud left the world short of a full replacement of Christianity, but he seems to have started the process.
I feel like I was reading too much criticism of Freud into Rieff's writing, because the end of the first and last chapter seem to celebrate the potential for Freud's revolution to eventually replace the way Christianity created a culture that accepted social hierarchies and consoled the discontented with a promise of a better afterlife.
In a way, Rieff suggests Freud destroyed Christian culture and replaced it with nothing but individualism just as the US student movement critiqued fifties conformist culture and replaced it with nothing but individualism.
Rieff does critique the replacement of the Christian concern for community with a more selfish concern for the individual well-being, and acknowledges the loss of a clear moral system at the close: "What is moral becomes and remains self-evident only within a powerful and deeply compelling system of culture." (261) That system of culture has yet to to arise as of 1966, but Rieff seems to be hopeful for the the end of the cultural revolution Freud started.
However, here is where Lasch, Bell, Slater, Putnam, Lasch-Quinn, Hunter, and even Riesman (writing before Rieff, and perhaps more like Rieff than these others optimistic about the eventual results of this cultural revolution) begin to suggest how problematic the loss of a moral system is turning out to be. Lasch-Quinn bemoans the turn in the Civil Rights movement from the MLK/Christian concern with the community to the Black Power concern with individual well-being. Lasch, Bell, and Slater critique the 60s student movement for a similar obsession with individual well-being at the cost of the community. A decade later than these three, Putnam offers the sociological proof that the individual is being emphasized over the communal, while Hunter (less explicitly) explores the how religion has divided social activists on the right and the left to such an extant that they are unable to speak to each other, much less work together for the community's benefit, much less agree on how the community should be improved.
Argument
"The religious psychologies of release (Jung, Reich, Lawrence) and the social technologies of affluence do not go beyond release and affluence to a fresh imposition of restrictive demands." (254)
"...a sense of well-being has become the end, rather than a by-product of striving after some superior communal end..." (261 [last sentence of book])
Rieff argues Freud's theories triggered the most consequential cultural revolution since Christianity subsumed the Roman Empire. (Note: Rieff is speaking of an apparently global revolution, but speaks mainly of Western culture. The East to Rieff in 1966 is the Soviet Union, which he argues is merely a more conservative attempt at a society designed for maximum improvement of individuals.) Freud replaced Christianity (and the religious impulse in general) with psychological analysis designed to release the individual from his psychological problems.
Rieff dedicates a chapter each to three of Freud's predecessors, Jung, Reich, and D.H. Lawrence, each of whom attempted to re-institute an element of faith into Freud's purely scientific system.
Jung - Unable to set his protestant faith aside as Freud had done with his Judaism, Jung imagined the "subterranean God" - the inner impulses Freud identified at work within man - as a replacement for the Heavenly Father.
Wilhelm Reich - Reich called himself a Freudo-Marxist. Reich, who admitted in his late-life memoirs that he thought himself a sort of prophet, imagined "Orgone," a universal energy (sexual...a replacement for Freud's libido...love is the supreme form of energy) which, if unleashed and embraced by individuals, would help bring about a moral and social revolution.
D.H. Lawrence - Lawrence idealized the innocent child, accepting Freud's theories about the sexuality of the child, and arguing the child is the perfect state of humans, one to be striven for.
A Definition of Culture
"To speak of a moral culture would be redundant. Every culture has two main functions: (1) to organize the moral demands men make upon themselves into asystem of symbols that make men intelligible and trustworthy to each other, thus rendering also the world intelligible and trustworthy; (2) to organize the expressive remissions by which men release themselves, in some degree, from the strain of conforming to the controlling symbolic, internalized variant readings of culture that constitute individual character." (232-3)
How this Fits
Freud is the revolutionary intellectual elite. Rieff is identifying his effect on culture, particularly, as he states over and over, his effect on American culture where he was most strongly embraced. As Freud's followers demonstrate, Freud left the world short of a full replacement of Christianity, but he seems to have started the process.
I feel like I was reading too much criticism of Freud into Rieff's writing, because the end of the first and last chapter seem to celebrate the potential for Freud's revolution to eventually replace the way Christianity created a culture that accepted social hierarchies and consoled the discontented with a promise of a better afterlife.
In a way, Rieff suggests Freud destroyed Christian culture and replaced it with nothing but individualism just as the US student movement critiqued fifties conformist culture and replaced it with nothing but individualism.
Rieff does critique the replacement of the Christian concern for community with a more selfish concern for the individual well-being, and acknowledges the loss of a clear moral system at the close: "What is moral becomes and remains self-evident only within a powerful and deeply compelling system of culture." (261) That system of culture has yet to to arise as of 1966, but Rieff seems to be hopeful for the the end of the cultural revolution Freud started.
However, here is where Lasch, Bell, Slater, Putnam, Lasch-Quinn, Hunter, and even Riesman (writing before Rieff, and perhaps more like Rieff than these others optimistic about the eventual results of this cultural revolution) begin to suggest how problematic the loss of a moral system is turning out to be. Lasch-Quinn bemoans the turn in the Civil Rights movement from the MLK/Christian concern with the community to the Black Power concern with individual well-being. Lasch, Bell, and Slater critique the 60s student movement for a similar obsession with individual well-being at the cost of the community. A decade later than these three, Putnam offers the sociological proof that the individual is being emphasized over the communal, while Hunter (less explicitly) explores the how religion has divided social activists on the right and the left to such an extant that they are unable to speak to each other, much less work together for the community's benefit, much less agree on how the community should be improved.
Sunday, January 16, 2011
Orsi - The Madonna of 115th Street
Orsi, Robert A. The Madonna of 115th Street: Faith and Community in Italian Harlem, 1880 - 1950. New Haven ; London: Yale University Press, 2002.
Argument
Orsi explores the community of Italian Harlem through an analysis of the devotion to the Madonna of 115th street. Besides religion, he covers family (particularly gender roles), first and second generation immigration issues, the decline of the community, and much more.
"The domus of Mount Carmel drew its meaning from and found support in its identification with the domus; the domus drew its meaning from and found its support in its identification with the domus of Mount Carmel." (171) After describing the way the festa of the Madonna would have looked, Orsi strays from the Madonna to describe life in the neighborhood before tying them back together in the large penultimate chapter, "The Meanings of the Devotion to the Madonna of 115th Street." The domus is the southern Italian emphasis on family, and the Italian immigrants claimed their identity in the new world through this emphasis, demanding rispetto (respect) to the family above all else. Thus the Madonna (and the Catholic faith in general) symbolized and mirrored the expected behavior of all Italians.
Other interesting tidbits
Orsi mainly draws from oral history and documents from the community. But he also supplements this with cultural works, such as novels, that came out of the community, using them as colorful examples that highlighted certain aspects of the reality of the community.
How does this fit into my reading list?
Social stems from culture. Culture is changed by change (I know what I said). Orsi sees the social dynamics of the community (the way the community functioned, from how marriages occurred to the jobs it pursued) stemming from its culture, which was created out of the desire of immigrants to retain a connection to Italy combined with the reality that they were very far from Italy indeed.
Critique
This book didn't blow me away as much as I expected it to. Perhaps I was not invested enough in the material, because the work itself is a spectacular piece of history. Personally, like many books, I think it could have been trimmed down (less examples, less repetition of certain points). But the brilliance of the book lies in the way Orsi starts with a specific aspect of a historical community and spirals out from that to discuss all aspects of that community's history. I also like the delicate way Orsi discusses religion, arguing that the Italians' sense of the control Saints had over their lives was not so much fatalism as their own humility and respect of the reality of the world as they understood it.
Argument
Orsi explores the community of Italian Harlem through an analysis of the devotion to the Madonna of 115th street. Besides religion, he covers family (particularly gender roles), first and second generation immigration issues, the decline of the community, and much more.
"The domus of Mount Carmel drew its meaning from and found support in its identification with the domus; the domus drew its meaning from and found its support in its identification with the domus of Mount Carmel." (171) After describing the way the festa of the Madonna would have looked, Orsi strays from the Madonna to describe life in the neighborhood before tying them back together in the large penultimate chapter, "The Meanings of the Devotion to the Madonna of 115th Street." The domus is the southern Italian emphasis on family, and the Italian immigrants claimed their identity in the new world through this emphasis, demanding rispetto (respect) to the family above all else. Thus the Madonna (and the Catholic faith in general) symbolized and mirrored the expected behavior of all Italians.
Other interesting tidbits
- Orsi's introduction reflects on his initial attempt at absolute objectivity in pursuing oral history, followed by his realization that he could allow himself to connect with the community on a personal level without damaging his work.
- The final crisis the community faced was the exodus of Italian-Americans from Harlem sparked by their improving economics. Actually, Italian-Americans retain some resentment to the Puerto Ricans who they believe forced them out of their community, while it was their own departure that opened room for the transition from Italian Harlem to Spanish Harlem.
- In 1903 Pope Leo XIII elevated the Madonna from shrine to sanctuary, something that only happened in the United States 3 times before 1954. This was partially motivated by his desire to protect his fellow Italians from the anti-Italian attitudes of American Catholics. This one of many facets of the tension between Irish and Italians in New York (and elsewhere). Another is the fact that Irish tended to be the bosses of Italian laborers.
- Italians mythologized the mafia as defenders of the domus outside the household in the cruel streets of New York, "forgetting" their cruelty and violence.
Orsi mainly draws from oral history and documents from the community. But he also supplements this with cultural works, such as novels, that came out of the community, using them as colorful examples that highlighted certain aspects of the reality of the community.
How does this fit into my reading list?
Social stems from culture. Culture is changed by change (I know what I said). Orsi sees the social dynamics of the community (the way the community functioned, from how marriages occurred to the jobs it pursued) stemming from its culture, which was created out of the desire of immigrants to retain a connection to Italy combined with the reality that they were very far from Italy indeed.
Critique
This book didn't blow me away as much as I expected it to. Perhaps I was not invested enough in the material, because the work itself is a spectacular piece of history. Personally, like many books, I think it could have been trimmed down (less examples, less repetition of certain points). But the brilliance of the book lies in the way Orsi starts with a specific aspect of a historical community and spirals out from that to discuss all aspects of that community's history. I also like the delicate way Orsi discusses religion, arguing that the Italians' sense of the control Saints had over their lives was not so much fatalism as their own humility and respect of the reality of the world as they understood it.
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Hunter - Culture Wars
Hunter, James Davison. Culture Wars: The Struggle to Define America. New York: BasicBooks, 1991.
I've hit a busy stretch with job search reading and grading, but I managed to grind out Culture Wars, so let's get right to it...
Scope & Argument (and connection to Election Night 2010)
Published about a year before Clinton's election and three years before the 1994 Republican Revolution, Hunter describes the cultural tension between conservative Orthodox religious groups (Protestant, Catholic, & Jewish) and Progressivists in America from the late-1970s. On its shallowest level, this is a book about the key political issues contested by the two sides. Going deeper, it is about the core Religious beliefs held by both sides that make it nearly impossible for both sides to engage in a constructive debate. (Using a broad definition, Hunter argues that even the moral framework under which the most secular Progressives act constitutes a Religious belief. p.119)
Hunter levels some criticism at the media, which boils dialogue down to short soundbites and thus adds to the polarity of cultural and political discourse. But most of all, the problems lies with the methods and language of both sides. Admittedly, it is difficult to foster a polite discourse between two sides with such drastically different core values. Nevertheless, Hunter shows how both sides seek to discredit the opposition rather than understand, de-legitimize rather than engage, and describe with hyperbole rather than fairness.
Indeed, it is ironic that I am writing this on the night of the 2010 election, one of the most bitter in recent memory. It feels to most observers that America has never been so divided. The campaigns seemed to emphasize this division, with ever-increasing negativity typifying races across the country. Furthermore in light of the economic woes, there is a strong anti-incumbent mood. The Tea Party seems to have taken advantage of the setting, channeling voter anger towards their anti-government, libertarian message. Conspicuously absent from the main Tea Party (and indeed, Republican) professed ideals is a strong emphasis on Orthodox religion. Their influence, even on the right, seems to have faded somewhat, perhaps after the failure of Bush II. Perhaps 1994 was their pinnacle, a point that supports Hunter's argument in 1991 that, contrary to what some observers believed and in light of the decline of the Moral Majority and televangelist scandals, the Orthodox right had not run out of steam.
Hunter correctly describes the important coalition between neo-conservatives, fiscal conservatives, and the Orthodox (socio-cultural conservatives) that led to Ronald Reagan. I wonder if perhaps this coalition has re-aligned slightly, taking more of a libertarian stance in 2010. We shall see how the Tea Party candidates mesh with the Republican party once tonight's turnover is in place.
Key term
secular humanism - The Orthodox "dirty-word" for the Progressivist agenda which the Orthodox say is anti-religious belief and anti- moral absolutes. The Progressivists respond by saying they are merely upholding American ideals of nonsectarianism and individual autonomy and responsibility. (202-3, 206)
Outline
Hunter spends parts I-III describing the historical roots of the conflict, drawing the fault lines, explaining their respective moral visions, and comparing the discourse of the two sides. Part IV describes, in turn, five "fields of conflict" - family, education, media and arts, law, and electoral politics.
Critique
This is a splendidly written book, accessible to a wide audience. The introduction sets Hunter's balanced tone brilliantly, with a series of "dispatches" from the culture front, each revealing the background and beliefs of key actors on both sides of key conflicts. Thus, Hunter humanizes both sides, giving the reader a chance to develop sympathy and understanding towards the characters. The balanced tone continues throughout, as Hunter delves into both sides of controversies with fairness and understanding. The book is itself, thus, a model of a better discourse.
Recommendation
Most of my friends, from the more Orthodox who tend toward conservatism to the more Progressive, could learn from this book. I wonder what each side's reaction would be? My gut tells me an Orthodox reader would have a more difficult time with the scholarly tone, detached as it is from the Orthodox conception of a moral authority.
I've hit a busy stretch with job search reading and grading, but I managed to grind out Culture Wars, so let's get right to it...
Scope & Argument (and connection to Election Night 2010)
Published about a year before Clinton's election and three years before the 1994 Republican Revolution, Hunter describes the cultural tension between conservative Orthodox religious groups (Protestant, Catholic, & Jewish) and Progressivists in America from the late-1970s. On its shallowest level, this is a book about the key political issues contested by the two sides. Going deeper, it is about the core Religious beliefs held by both sides that make it nearly impossible for both sides to engage in a constructive debate. (Using a broad definition, Hunter argues that even the moral framework under which the most secular Progressives act constitutes a Religious belief. p.119)
Hunter levels some criticism at the media, which boils dialogue down to short soundbites and thus adds to the polarity of cultural and political discourse. But most of all, the problems lies with the methods and language of both sides. Admittedly, it is difficult to foster a polite discourse between two sides with such drastically different core values. Nevertheless, Hunter shows how both sides seek to discredit the opposition rather than understand, de-legitimize rather than engage, and describe with hyperbole rather than fairness.
Indeed, it is ironic that I am writing this on the night of the 2010 election, one of the most bitter in recent memory. It feels to most observers that America has never been so divided. The campaigns seemed to emphasize this division, with ever-increasing negativity typifying races across the country. Furthermore in light of the economic woes, there is a strong anti-incumbent mood. The Tea Party seems to have taken advantage of the setting, channeling voter anger towards their anti-government, libertarian message. Conspicuously absent from the main Tea Party (and indeed, Republican) professed ideals is a strong emphasis on Orthodox religion. Their influence, even on the right, seems to have faded somewhat, perhaps after the failure of Bush II. Perhaps 1994 was their pinnacle, a point that supports Hunter's argument in 1991 that, contrary to what some observers believed and in light of the decline of the Moral Majority and televangelist scandals, the Orthodox right had not run out of steam.
Hunter correctly describes the important coalition between neo-conservatives, fiscal conservatives, and the Orthodox (socio-cultural conservatives) that led to Ronald Reagan. I wonder if perhaps this coalition has re-aligned slightly, taking more of a libertarian stance in 2010. We shall see how the Tea Party candidates mesh with the Republican party once tonight's turnover is in place.
Key term
secular humanism - The Orthodox "dirty-word" for the Progressivist agenda which the Orthodox say is anti-religious belief and anti- moral absolutes. The Progressivists respond by saying they are merely upholding American ideals of nonsectarianism and individual autonomy and responsibility. (202-3, 206)
Outline
Hunter spends parts I-III describing the historical roots of the conflict, drawing the fault lines, explaining their respective moral visions, and comparing the discourse of the two sides. Part IV describes, in turn, five "fields of conflict" - family, education, media and arts, law, and electoral politics.
Critique
This is a splendidly written book, accessible to a wide audience. The introduction sets Hunter's balanced tone brilliantly, with a series of "dispatches" from the culture front, each revealing the background and beliefs of key actors on both sides of key conflicts. Thus, Hunter humanizes both sides, giving the reader a chance to develop sympathy and understanding towards the characters. The balanced tone continues throughout, as Hunter delves into both sides of controversies with fairness and understanding. The book is itself, thus, a model of a better discourse.
Recommendation
Most of my friends, from the more Orthodox who tend toward conservatism to the more Progressive, could learn from this book. I wonder what each side's reaction would be? My gut tells me an Orthodox reader would have a more difficult time with the scholarly tone, detached as it is from the Orthodox conception of a moral authority.
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